Sabeen Mahmud, along with her mother, was targeted in Defence Phase-II area of Karachi. She was in her late 30’s and had acquired education from the Karachi Grammar School.

The political leaders of the country and members of the civil society had strongly condemned the killing of the T2F director. Her funeral prayers were also attended by a large number of people.

First Information Report (FIR) (214/215) of her killing was registered under Sections 302, 324, 34 and 7 of the Anti-terrorism Act (ATA) (1997) at Defence police station.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had ordered an investigation into the killing of prominent rights activist Sabeen Mahmud. A military spokesman had stated that her murder case would run in a military court.

She had hosted a seminar about rights abuses in Baluchistan titled “Un-silencing Baluchistan Take 2”, featuring two prominent Baluch rights activists, Mama Qadeer and Farzana Baluch, among other speakers.

The group of terrorists, which targeted a bus of the Ismaili community last year on 20th May, had confessed of carrying out the fatal attack on the T2F director.

According to the Counter-Terrorism Department official Raja Umar Khattab, Sabeen Mahmud’s driver Ghulam Abbas was a key witness in the prominent activist’s murder.

Ghulam Abbas worked as a part-time driver for Sabeen and was also a police constable. He had been sitting in the rear seat when the attack on Sabeen Mahmud had taken place, as she was driving the car herself.

Ghulam Abbas was returning after offering prayers, when he was shot dead by armed assailants. The shooting took place in Korangi area of Karachi, where Abbas resided.

However, according to Umar Khattab, the murder of Abbas would not hamper ongoing investigation of the Sabeen Mahmud murder case. This was due to the fact that prior to his shooting, Ghulam Abbas had identified the criminals before a magistrate.

Sabeen Mahmud was shot dead in April of this year, after she hosted a controversial session at T2F cafe on the issue of Balochistan. It was Ghulam Abbas who had rushed Sabeen and her mother to the hospital, after both of them had been sprayed with bullets.

A graduate of IBA named Saad Aziz had confessed to being the mastermind of Sabeen Mahmud’s murder. The above named was also an accomplice in the infamous Ismaili bus attack.

KARACHI: One of the top officials of Karachi police on Wednesday claimed to have recovered a hit-list from Safoora bus attack suspects, containing names of journalists, fashion designers and government officials.

The official of Counter-Terrorism Department Raja Umer Khattab, in a press conference, said the militants who attacked Ismaili community bus near Safoora Chowk were inspired by self-styled Islamic State and wanted to create its link with the global terror outfit.

He said the interrogation by a joint investigation team (JIT) of the five detained suspects had been completed. Besides Tahir, the other four suspects are Saad Aziz, Hafiz Nasir Ahmed, Mohammed Azhar Ishrat and Asad Rehman.

They were previously associated with Al-Qaeda but last year Tahir alias Minhas alias Sain, the key suspect in the Safoora bus attack case, developed some differences with another militant, Jalal, over provision of funds and other organisational matters, the officer said. Later, Tahir established his own group while Jalal remained associated with Al-Qaeda, he added.

Khattab said interrogation of the suspects revealed that they were involved in over two dozen attacks.

Safoora bus attack

He went on to describe that the militants had planned to target Ismaili community members two months ago. He said they had done a recce of the bus five times and prepared a map in which six points were shown. At least 10 militants actually took part in the terror act while their two accomplices were present in their cars at nearby places, he disclosed.

“At least six attackers barged into the bus. Some of them were wearing police uniform, others were clad in shalwar-qameez and trousers and shirts. Four of the attackers fired at the passengers, another drove the bus while one stood on the door so that no one could escape.

The attackers used foreign weapons, said the CTD officer, adding that they executed the plan within 10 to 12 minutes.

Sabeen Mahmud murder

Khattab said Saad Aziz was the main suspect in the murder of rights activist Sabeen Mahmud. Before killing her, he had attended two seminars at her social forum, The Second Floor. He also showed a picture in which he was seen sitting there.

“Saad Aziz hatched a plan to kill Sabeen Mahmud as he did not like her views about Lal Masjid cleric, Valentine’s Day and Burqa (veil),” said the CTD officer.

As Ms Mahmud left her office along with her mother and driver in a car, Saad Aziz and Mehmood chased them on their motorcycle and targeted her at the Defence traffic signal before fleeing, the officer added.

The Twitter account of the Harvard Pakistan Student Group @HarvardPakStGrp tweeted on April 29 a picture of the vigil showed several dozen undergraduate and graduate students posing with a placard each.

The law enforcement agencies have conducted similar raids today in Defence and Clifton areas and rounded up some other suspects. The key suspect has been moved to an undisclosed location for interrogation.

Gunmen on a motorcycle attacked activist Sabeen Mahmud late last Friday in Karachi, as she was leaving her cafe, where she held art exhibitions and talks. She had just hosted a discussion on disappearances in Baluchistan.

Police say their only witness is Mahmud’s mother, who was with her and was wounded. Investigators suspect the killers had a back-up team of two men on a motorcycle and police are poring over CCTV footage.

In a Facebook post put up on its Facebook page on the evening of April 28, The Second Floor -- the brainchild of Sabeen Mahmud who was killed by unidentified men in Karachi on April 24 -- announced that it was closing till further notice.

The post was met with support from the Second Floor’s many supporters. Situated in a commercial area in Karachi’s upmarket Defence area, the Second Floor, or T2F as it came to be known, became a veritable oasis for the city’s starved intellectual elite, hosting all kinds of interesting and stimulating events in the process.

KARACHI/ISLAMABAD: Pakistani investigators have found no match for casings of bullets that killed a prominent human rights activist, dashing hopes for quick answers to a murder that has raised fears for the safety of dissenting voices.

Gunmen on a motorcycle attacked activist Sabeen Mahmud late last Friday in Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi, as she was leaving her cafe, where she held art exhibitions and talks.

She had just hosted a discussion on disappearances in Baluchistan.

Investigators recovered bullet casings from the scene but drew a blank.

“That suggests that a new group or new weapon has been used in the killing,” a law enforcement official involved in the case, who declined to be identified because the topic is sensitive, said late on Monday.

Police say their only witness is Mahmud’s mother, who was with her and was wounded. Investigators suspect the killers had a back-up team of two men on a motorcycle and police are poring over CCTV footage.

Investigators desperate for clues are monitoring social media in hopes that loose talk could provide a lead, said another senior law enforcement official.

Authorities had earlier blocked the talk, titled “Unsilencing Baluchistan”, when it was scheduled at a different venue.

“THIRD PARTY”

For many Pakistanis, the separatists in Baluchistan, the country’s poorest and most thinly populated province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, pose a more alarming threat than militants.

Pakistan says the rebels get help from neighbour and arch-rival India, but India denies this.

Security concerns in the province took on added urgency days before Mahmud was killed, when China’s President Xi Jinping unveiled projects worth up to $46 billion for an economic corridor anchored there.

The army has vowed to crush the insurgency.

The first law enforcement official said Mahmud’s killers might have taken advantage of the tension between the authorities and Mahmud over her Baluchistan activism.

“Our hunch is that some third party exploited the standoff,” he said, suggesting India.

Sabeen was four years my junior at school -- we were in the same house in school and she was a top athlete and sportswoman even then. In fact, she was so good that she would be captaining most of the girls' teams for her house.

My relationship with her through this prism of being the captain of her school house and interacting with her for most of the sports related competitions for girls from classes seven to nine. Sabeen seemed a born leader and the rest of the people in the team would instinctively take to following her.

I left school and the next I read about her was that she had become this very successful hacktivist and entrepreneur. In fact, she had founded what in due course of time came to symbolize an oasis in the increasing intellectual desert of Pakistan, a place where people came together, shared ideas, and debated and discussed them. Eventually, The Second Floor — or T2F as it became known — blossomed into a well known hangout place for Karachi’s young cultural elite, and would hold all kinds of programmes, from music recitals, to seminars on rights, to hosting foreign academics, film-makers and so on. The Second Floor is run mostly on donations and those who attended its events were asked to make nominal donations so that the place could be sustainable.

Sabeen, detained by the police, after one of her many protests

While I never attended any of its events, T2F attracted a very loyal following, so much so that when Sabeen had to change the location because her landlord had asked her to move out, she managed to raise donations to partly fund that move, and most of it came from the people who would gather at its premises to engage in intellectual and cerebral duels, or perhaps just for a cup of coffee.

Though Sabeen attended some of Pakistan’s most elite educational institutions, the things she fought for and campaigned were anything but. As Pakistani writer, editor and novelist resident in London, Kamila Shamsie, tweeted soon after her death (she was killed on April 24 on her way to her home after attending an event at T2F on the issue of missing persons in Balochistan), when told to be careful of the consequences, Sabeen replied “Someone has to fight”.